This afternoon while returning home from northern New Mexico, I passed through the small town of Dickens, Texas. Just before entering the town I had passed a slower vehicle. Approaching a slight rise at about 75 mph, we could see turkey vultures scattering. As we topped the rise I could see roadkill approximately where my right front wheel would normally pass and one reluctant buzzard to the left of it. I chose to steer to the left of the roadkill (one of those reflex decisions) and figured the buzzard would make his escape. The buzzard was too slow and rose just high enough to clear the grille of my F150 (thank you Lord!) and smacked the windshield right in front of my wife. THUMP! This all took place in about a tenth of a second as I recall it, maybe two tenths. I don't know how it looked to the guy I had passed a few moments before, but I imagine he saw a very dead buzzard launch twenty or thirty feet into the air.

A moment later I realized that if I'd passed over the roadkill centered, the buzzard may well have smacked the windshield right in front of my own face. As it was, there was already a crack about ten inches long and that damned buzzard might have come through the windshield and ended up wrapped around my mug. The impact on the passenger side of the windshield added another eight or ten inches to the existing crack on the driver side as it turns out.

I think I may have been very lucky today, all things considered. I never thought I'd actually cream a buzzard, though.

Had one take off a radio antenna... Closest I've come. Bummer about your windshield crack.

That's scary stuff. I've had more near misses than I want to lay claim to. Mostly triple digits on a bike having to do some weird contortion to miss it. I've lost two friends to birds on the highway and bikes. One a buzzard and one a hawk.

Big owl once in PA.

A buddy of mine hit a turkey buzzard in Far West Texas with his Toyota pickup while driving out to Big Bend.

Came right through the windshield, and then projectile vomited all over the cab before dying.

Only thing I’ve hit like that was a chicken, about like hitting a basketball, dented the grill of the university pickup I was driving.

Red tail Hawk tried to come through my godfathers windshield on the way out to an evening deer hunt. 55-60 mph the hawk swooped headfirst from some distance. Happens quick.

Yeah, well...cracked windshields happen a lot here and I'm sure you know that living in the same area. Windshields just don't survive long in this neck of the woods owing to all the gravel being trucked around. I was running this one "a while longer" before replacing it. I'm rethinking the whole notion of getting more miles out of a cracked one before getting a new one installed. Coulda been a very bad scene.

great horned owl hit one of my antennas, flew into van behind me and died , stopped picked it up , cops were driving by, up here we need permits to keep raptors, told them what i had and would get permit tomorrow.
I was part of first responders knew all the cops, got a permit next day , still have the owl on my wall.

norm

No.

I remember reading and seeing pictures in a Car Magazine 25ish years ago, some kind of race in the south-west.
Guy was driving a Mitsubishi VR-4 all-wheel drive car, big twin turbo etc. etc. going down a road that was as much gravel as it was pavement. He said it was so bumpy he was holding the gas pedal to the floorboard with both feet. Speed was over 170mph, he could see some buzzards in the mirage and thought they'd get out of the way. Nope,, blew right through one or two got hit. It destroyed the lower air dam, grill, radiator, serpentine belt, pulleys, etc. putting him out of the race.
He said it was a stinky clean up.

RiverRider, sounds like you need one of the windshield crack/chip guys help.

I ran over a chicken, it was like going over a bowling ball

wtf

Swing by again and let us know if they eat their own. Don't know if they do the cannibal thing or not. I suspect they appear quite large at close range.

Worked at Kennecott Barney’s Canyon Gold mine years ago. My boss, who was from back East, fancied himself as Mario Andretti in a Ford Escort and with the downhill run, would drive like a bat out of hell going out of there. Coming around a bend one morning after night shift he hit an elk that not only busted the windshield, it turned that Escort into a convertible and bled out in the back seat. My boss dove for the floorboard at the last second or I’m sure he would have been killed.

Most likely badly overcooked.

Buzzard Hell... How bout a Whooping Crane... Four or five of em took off from the field on my left, The last one caught me high on the left doors... His legs got in my open left rear window... Damaged trim and Whoopie Schit all over the car... Got off lucky... That thing was Huge...

I once hit a hawk going 80 MPH on the Jersey Turnpike. Hit the top of the windshield, bounced off and keep flying. About an hour earlier I center punched a mourning dove in the windshield killing it, feathers all over, first time for both.

About a month earlier while going elk hunting in Colorado, I was on Rt. 80 going 85 mph when a V shaped piece of rebar flew up in the air after getting run over by the driver in front of me. It stuck on the hood of my Ford F-150 like javelin. If it hit a little higher, I don't know if my buddy would be here today. Can't imagine what would have happened if it hit lower and the air bags went off.

Same thing happened to a classmates Dad when I was in high school. He said it took weeks for the feathers and the stench to leave that van after the windshield was replaced.
I hit one a couple years ago with my old truck.
Luckily he cleared the windshield, bounced off the toppa the cab and landed on the berm stone dead.
It laid there for weeks, never saw other buzzards bother the corpse. (if that answers your question)
Also hit a Great Horned Owl in West Virginia. I was in a semi truck and straddled him. If he stayed put he made it, but I never got back to see.
Also several guinie fowl at different times, fellow out the road has some free range. They’re too damn stupid to move outta the way.
7mm

Bounced one off of my shoulder while riding my Suzuki DR650 at about 40 MPH. Glancing blow. The smell of ammonia was overpowering.

Try PTFE Teflon...

The Coefficient of Friction is fare superior to spandex.

5:00am early morning EMS run. Riding shotgun on a narrow back road. Lights and siren must have spooked a roosting turkey out of a tree. Turkey hit passenger side windshield right in front of me. Football size ident in the windshield. Would have had a face full of turkey if not for the safety laminate.

Definitely get your attention.

Never hit a buzzard but I did hit a turkey once. Driving to work one day I started to come over a knoll when a flock of turkeys took off to my right. One of them came off the bank and right into the driver's side post on my truck. Launched it straight up into the air. I looked in my mirror just in time to see it hit the road right in front of a little 2-seater convertible that went right over it. When I got to work I looked for possible damage and only found turkey puke all over the driver's side of my truck.

I hit one at about 35 MPH several years ago. Hit the front bumper and killed it. I was expecting a little damage but there was only a bit of goo on the bumper.

Yup

Never hit one ,but drove past a bunch that were eating roadkill .when the flock got up one managed to take a dump allover the windshield and roof of the car ,had to stop at the first place I could and hose it off then to the car wash for a major cleaning ,stinkyest plie ever ,still can make me want to gag just thinking about it.

RiverRider is making me reconsider putting off a new windshield on my F-150 any longer. During the TX freeze in 21 my windshield developed two cracks that go all the way across and are joined by vertical crack too. They are low on the windshield so I mostly
Look over them but it likely wouldn’t take much of an impact to allow cabin intrusion.

The largest thing I’ve hit with a windshield was a hen pheasant - can’t imagine the thump from a big old buzzard.

They puke out what they've eaten to take off faster. Had a big, bloody wad of puke hit the windshield when I barely missed a buzzard once. Like you said, it was a tad stinky.

Only time I actually hit a buzzard, it glanced off the windshield, but not before knocking an egg out, that splattered all over the glass and roof. That required a quick car wash too.

No, but I’ve come close

Growing up in GA , you’d see buzzards pretty regular. Now, in SC, they are every damn where. I don’t ever recall seeing so many vultures.

Has there been a vulture explosion? Just the area? Part of the reason for quail numbers tanking?

Was with a friend who lost a drivers side rear view mirror to a rooster pheasant in South Dakota, at 75 mph.

Buzzards are pretty light and surprisingly fragile. Lotsa wingspan, but not very heavy.

I bet that pheasant was heavier.

No vulture but a couple of owls over the years.
I was driving a dark starless night on a paved road in northern MN, smooth quiet ride when my drivers side window shattered. That woke me up. Turned back and found a flying squirrel dead.

Osky

I'd rather hit another pig than another buzzard!
Filthy creatures! Yeah, yeah, yeah, nature's clean up crew.
Dirt road or international race way, I see buzzards, I slow down!
Hit one that took out a headlight and damaged the grill in a Dodge "Dakota".
My f-i-l was a civilian electrician for the airforce at Sheppard AFB working on the little T6 trainers. A pilot and trainee hit a buzzard during takeoff.
Hit it hard enough it "strained" buzzard between the windshield and gasket into the cockpit.
Needless to say, they immediately returned to base.
The T6 has a little access door to some electronics that the crews also used to store their little dirty bags during flights.
F-I-L said if you ever popped the access door on that T6, there was NO DOUBT that was the plane.

We get tons of them here in the Summer. How I know Spring is here.

On the winding roads not uncommon to come around a corner to see them scarfing down roadkill. Have had to move dead raccoons and deer out of the road to keep the vultures from getting hit.

Almost as bad as bicyclist. But never been flipped off by a buzzard.

Gruff's truck has hit every living thing shy of moose and grizz.

Don't know if it was barf or crap, but having grown up on a farm with hogs ,cows, chickens eat. I have seen and done some nasty things and that raised right up neat to the top

laffin’

A blue heron is just the opposite, it’ll schitt about 1/2 gallon of greasy crap to gain momentum quicker!
I had a near miss on a buzzard In the great state of FL one time.

I center punched a nice muley buck last night coming home.


With the wife's Suburban.

Nope…. But, back in the early ‘70’s, I came within inches of “catching” one in the face at around 60 mph while riding my motorcycle to work! I’m pretty certain that had I hit it, it would have been a very bad outcome! memtb

I refer to those as $hitaquarts.

In about 1964 I was home on leave and borrowed my mom's car to go to another town. Coming back I got a golden eagle right in the windshield, didn't come through but did a lot of damage to the glass. Her insurance paid for the new windshield which was a very good thing as I sure didn't have any money to speak of.

OP, maybe you could slow down some. I think birds on the pavement get used to vehicles speed but if a guy travels faster than normal traffic he sure seems to hit more of them. Ain't telling how to drive just an observation of my own..mb

When my daughter was in flight school, at Ft, Rucker AL., one of the helicopters struck a buzzard at about 1500 feet. The bird came through the plexiglass and hit the instructor-pilot in the face, knocking him unconscious. The student had to land the helicopter and that instructor was out of commission for some time. GD

I hit a rooster pheasant with an f-350 one time. Flew right into the windshield and man it sounded like a bomb went off. The windshield ended up cracking badly. Sometimes schit happens. I've hit a few deer too, that's much worse.

Seems to be common, last few days


https://www.wkrn.com/news/local-new...ruck-by-buzzard-while-riding-motorcycle/





LAWRENCEBURG, Tenn. (WKRN) – A man was killed after being struck by a bird while riding his motorcycle Thursday afternoon in Lawrenceburg.

The Tennessee Highway Patrol said 41-year-old Karl Tillar was riding his Suzi GSX motorcycle northbound near the intersection of Highway 241 and Red Hill Center Road at around 3 p.m. when a buzzard hit him in the head, causing Tillar to lose control of his motorcycle and run off the road.

Sheriff’s deputy prevents erratic driver from hitting children during Macon County parade
The motorcycle reportedly went through a fence and hit multiple trees before coming to a stop in the field. Tillar was thrown from the motorcycle and died from his injuries.

No other information was released.

We have plenty of buzzards and white pelicans here locally—but that’s something new—didn’t use to be here. Saw my first pelican in 1984 and my first buzzard in 1988. I was suprized how light a buzzard actually is compared to how big they look.
I used to drive a delivery truck down the North Shore of Lake Superior—f-150 econoline van— headed down Cavers hill a little too fast when the windshield exploded. I thought I had been shot. Pulled over and jumped out shaking off a pound of glass shards—looked over the windshield fully expecting to see a bullet hole. One small partridge feather right at top of windshield and a small dent in body just above that.

Wild turkey, tame turkey, tame goose, chickens, lotta song birds.
No buzzards.


Wife's aunt died in NC, i had a van full driving down for the funeral.
Outside Warrenton VA we are on a 2 lane right after sun up.
A sparrow flies down right in front of us, turns it's back, and
we run over it. Father-in-law starts laughing "That Fűcking bird just
committed suicide". Everyone busted up laughing. That bird relieved
the tension and set a better mood for a long day.

We was at Ghostown in the Sky, the little open top bus they have picks you up from the skylift dock. Shuttles humans up to haul them to the main doins up top.

Driver on the microphone talking to folks…

Groundhog darts out as the bus is creeping at 3mph. Back axel of the bus lifted up 4-5” inches and bounced.

Driver says “whooops”

I look back and the
Groundhog is doing a joe cocker impression in the road LOL

Narrowly missed one in a C180 at about 5000 feet a few years ago. He was way up there.

Yep, they are set to run in economy mode, they can go for a week or more at a time between meals too.

I try not to travel much with my Mother-in-law.

If I see a politician on the road, I'll definitely smack it- - - - - -or are we we discussing the kind of buzzard that has feathers and a long, scrawny neck?

I hit an armadillo in FT Hood, TX. At first I thought I had ran over a paint can or a tool box, etc. Until I saw it in my rear view mirror laying in the road

Eagles.......

especially the Baldie's

They just seem dumm while on a road kill along highway

The big ones typically go 30-40 days between meals

Yes, last year. He took out my windshield.

The big ones typically go 30-40 days between meals

Shattered my windshield with one.